With the arrival of Easter I thought it was time to confess this blogger’s religious worldview. I am a Christian Heretic. I’m probably more a heretic then Christian, as I will explain below. Anyone checking out this strange blog will surely think I am among the damned. But I have a coherent, rational and I’d say even logical reason for what I believe.

My central heresy is based on rejection of exclusive salvation thru belief in any religious dogma. I apply logic to this concept. If belief in a dogma is the only path to salvation…how do I know my belief is the correct one?

What if the Jehovah’s Witnesses are the only true path to heaven? Then all Hindus, Muslims, evangelical Christens, Buddhists, Catholics and so forth are damned to torment in the fires of perdition for all eternity. Why? Because we guessed wrong. We picked our theology unwisely. Oh well…off to hell we go! Salvation becomes a matter of chance (or predestination) usually based on the religion we were raised in. Entire regions of the planet are apparently damned.

Before we get up on our high horse and proclaim I am CERTAIN I am saved, so does the other guy. The devout Muslim is no less certain in his beliefs then the devout Christian. Chat with a Jehovah’s Witnesses when they knock on your door and you’ll see real faith. Personal belief proves nothing. If only ONE theology is correct, then everybody else has to be wrong. Salvation is a crapshoot, a roll of the dice.

So it becomes a battle of theologies…whose theology is better then the other. What a pointless argument. Religion is not science. It is all belief and opinion. To consider one faith more worthy then another, who can judge any of that?

This is why I am a Christian heretic. Personally I believe Christ died for all humanity, regardless of religion, not only for born-again evangelical Christians. That is why it’s called the Good News. Otherwise it would be Bad News…very bad news. Imagine a reality where only born-again Christians went to heaven, and everybody else went to hell. Does a Hindu love their child any less then a Christian? No. But they still go to hell because of theological differences?

If Jesus Himself offered exclusive entrance to heaven but excluded a Buddhist, I’d refuse. I’d rather coexist in hell with 90% of humanity then in heaven with the 10% saved. What good is heaven if your “unsaved” son or daughter, your father or mother, or your dear friends are eternally separated from you? How can heaven be heaven when our loved ones are all in hell? The only way to erase such love is to erase our memories. In other words, to go to heaven requires we are blasted into oblivion with our identities erased.

Hell is not a place of fire and brimstone, but is a place where humanity is eternally separated from God. In this hell…a void of unimaginable darkness, 90% of mankind will dwell after death. And what then? The spirits of the damned will eventually interact with each other. Time and space are no longer barriers; without physical bodies there will be no pain outside our inner turmoil. In hell we will actually be reunited with our loved ones, our families and friends forever. Maybe hell won’t be such a bad place.

In hell, I imagine a gathering of enlightened souls. Enlightened individuals like the Dalai Lama, Mother Teresa and countless other damned spirits will gather together in love. It will be like a Milky Way galaxy with each soul being a star in the eternal darkness. Gathering towards the center will the brightest lights, the holy men and women of the ages who will attract like-minded souls towards them. Darker souls will wander off hovering in a ring around the center. The worst will fade away into the eternal darkness that mirrors their hearts. Hell will be a fair place where we choose to live in love (or not). I imagine such a place will even create its own reality, shaping the darkness into a new reality. A new universe will be given birth.

Meanwhile, in heaven, the saved will be stripped of their identity, annihilated in the fiery furnace of heaven, and merged into the heavenly light. Know what? Heaven is starting to sound like hell, and hell is becoming more like heaven.

This is why I am a heretic. If I am to go to hell, I will have everybody else joining me. We shall make our own galaxy, our own heaven together.

19 Responses to “Confessions of a Christian Heretic”

The only catch 22 is “hell” or so-called hell is by the Creator’s definition, separation from Him eternally. This means all sins and perversions of creation will continue without any help from Him forever. So there will be no love and peace there-only the absence thereof. For eternity. Eternal pain and anguish with no way out for infinity? No, thanks.

Hi Demaster
You raise a very good point. Humanity is imperfect, and we’d carry that imperfection with us for all eternity. However, I’d suggest a God that cast 90% of humanity into hell because they had faith in something different makes God Himself imperfect. This version of God (what I call the 10% God) would be a Flawed Being. A 10% God suggests the crucifixion of Christ was a failure. Indeed, it would’ve been better if a 10% God never created humanity in the first place. I’d suggest eternity with a Flawed, Imperfect God may not be such a rosy scenario.
Dave

You sound just like Lucifer tempting us with the forbidden fruit to join you in hell… But I completely agree you! That’s exactly the same thoughts I had growing up as a kid in an Evengelical community church. It’s not about wordshipping God or crying to Jesus to save us. It’s basically following Jesus principles. Love your neighbor. Simple.

Hi Cayetano,
My heresy is in imagining God is greater then any dogma. I don’t view that as radical, but it sure seems to be! Is Christ responsible for universal salvation (past/present/future) for everybody? That would be a 100% God, or at least a 99% God. During near-death out-of-body experiences, people report one’s religious viewpoint doesn’t seem to matter much. People of all faiths report the same basic experience. That appears to be objective evidence I may be on the right track.
Dave

It still comes down to a hope for you and everyone else of faith. There is no proof for any of the invisible gods and there is no getting around that. It’s amazing that our so called gods all liked to show themselves when video and audio wasn’t available, when proof couldn’t be recorded. If you want some believers god, show yourself now! I think religion does more to hurt the human race rather than lifting it up. It’s time to do away with it!

Definetely! I’ve also read about NDE and it is quite fascinating how religion barriers seem to collapse when one crosses to the next realm with many survivors returning to more spirituality awareness. I think by “born-again” Christians have interpreted what Jesus said too simple. “Born-again” simply means reincarnating again. Jesus had similar philosophy as Buddha. Both teach to love their fellow friends and enemies, if you get assaulted do not strike back, etc. In fact Jesus talks about activating the third eye. Matthew 6:22 “Your eye is a lamp that provides light for your body. When your eye is good, your whole body is filled with light.” In my opinion, this is what most Christians are lacking; a connection to their inner soul and divine awareness.

you are right in assuming that a righteous God would not condemn people of another faith to eternal hell just because they ‘picked wrong in the crap shoot’ you are wrong in assuming that He does. I believe God judged the heart condition of each individual, no matter thier faith, and if God finds a good heart, that bearer will enjoy relationship with Him in heaven. emphasis on ENJOY. in my family, a more or else left the mormon church to a version of Christianity, we have always been taught and believe and that many will attain the throne of heaven, even if they called it in thier normal lives, nirvana, the happy hunting grounds, or valhalla, so long as they pursued thier idea of God as king David did, a man who is called in the bible, ‘a man after God’s own heart’. i have always thought of it like this. We are made in God’s image, therefore we must assume that He is like and us like Him. to that effect, if a stranger comes to your door, a bum, poorly dressed, broke, smells of alcohol, and begs for a room to stay, you and anyone else would like deny entry. however, if your best friend, lover, mother, brother, showed up in the same condition, and begger to enter, you would likely let them in. what is the difference? you know them!! you love and care for one, disregard and distrust the other. one is let in dispite appearance and circumstance, the other sent away without a second thought. the difference being that personal relationship and ‘knowing’ the other. that is God of the bible. as the Scripture says, He has many, many, names, and He WILL resond to all. i like to call Him My Main Damie. and i know, know, know, that when i die, and call Him by that name, He will answer me and call me back to heaven because i had a relationship with Him in my life when i tried to get to know Him more personally than sitting in a pew on Sunday’s and calling myself a ‘Christian’.

Hi Bart,
I agree much of religion is human speculation. I think religion is mostly harmless except when the speculation goes off the rails into prejudice and violence, like when fanatics crash planes into buildings. But eveybody has a right to their beliefs. As for proof of an afterlife, the research being done in the NDE field is pretty convincing.
Dave

Hi Aliz,
Heresy means one’s beliefs lie outside acceptability; heresy is not the same as agnosticism. I am a Christian because I like the story, true or not. But I am a heretic because I don’t accept how Christianity is narrowly defined. Universal salvation seems very God-like to me, regardless of what name we give God.
Dave

Hi Bandito,
I suspect the only people who go to “hell” are those who willingly, knowingly choose to do so. We might wonder who would want to live in darkness after death. But we have free will, and many people may choose to remain in the darkness. It is hard to imagine, yet it happens right here in real life. The world is filled with people who choose to be destructive towards others and themselves. If we live in metaphorical “darkness” in life it may extend into the afterlife.
Dave

To me it seems pretty simple. Jesus said that blasphemy against the Father and/or the Son would be forgiven but blasphemy against the Holy Ghost would not be forgiven. The Holy Ghost is the spirit of Love; therefore, if one’s heart is full of Love, they will be saved. Those with hearts full of hatred are damned.

I googled heaven and hell experiences and found 100s of people having experiences of heaven and hell. I then googled Muslim life after death experiences and Jewish life after death experiences etc…. I could only find people seeing Jesus and heaven being people that believed in Jesus. Try it, I found it interesting. I go to the internet for recipes, and virtually all other info why not NDEs

Hi Dave,
In the NDE people report a Divine Presence, and usually interpret the presence according to their religious beliefs. People of all religions, or no religion, have experienced this.

From Psychology Today:

A study by Zalika Klemenc-Ketis and colleagues published in the journal Critical Care investigated this question in a search for possible commonalities among people who have near-death-experiences, and the findings are provocative. Examining medical records of heart attack patients together with detailed questionnaires about the individual’s religious beliefs, other personal attributes, and medical data, the researchers found that if a person was an atheist, his or her chances of having an out-of-body experience were the same as for a Catholic or Muslim.

[…] teaches something that does not happen to square with his opinion, he feels free to reject it (example). Now, however rigorous the process by which his opinion was reached, it is based on demonstration […]